Lewis Memorial UMC

How’s your prayer life? Have you ever been asked that question? Well, how IS your prayer life today? I didn’t ask if you have prayed today or what you prayed about today. They are similar questions, but different as well. A lot of people pray on a daily basis, but what is the depth of our prayers? Is your prayer life like Jonah’s? Do you find yourself praying only when you are facing troubles and hard times? Do you find that most of your prayer life is spent asking for help, but even then it’s not until you have hit rock bottom, like Jonah?

Last Sunday we started a sermon series on prayer and we started with the first letter – P. The P in pray is for PRAISING! I hope you praised God more in your prayers in the past week. We have so many reasons to praise God and if you’ll remember from last week I challenged you to praise Him more in your prayers and by doing so you would be more able to praise Him in your daily living. With that in mind I return to my opening question this morning – How is your prayer life? Are you praising God today or are you like Jonah and pleading with God today? I think most of us are probably doing a little of both.

We are on our second letter of the word PRAY today so let’s think about the R, which stands for RESULTS. If you think about it every time we pray we should expect some kind of result. Look with me at Psalm 4. King David is credited with writing most of the Psalms and these 150 chapters arguably form the greatest collection of prayers ever written. In the 3rd Psalm David wrote how he calls to the Lord and God answers him from on high. Here in Psalm 4:1 we read, “Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer.” Now look at the end of verse 3, “Know that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself; the Lord will hear when I call Him.” God always hears our prayers to Him! That’s the first result.

Now let’s look at chapter 5:1-3……… We are expecting God to answer us when we pray, and He does every time. That answer may be “yes” or “no”, or it may be “not right now” or “wait.” For the most part we don’t like ¾ of those answers, but God does answer us in His own way. That is a result of prayer.

Let’s think about Jonah for a little while this morning. Do you remember the story how Jonah responded to God’s call upon his life? Jonah ran! Not unlike many of our own stories. I ran for 10 years from God’s call to be in ministry and I am so glad that I didn’t get thrown in the sea and swallowed by a big fish!

Do you remember when Jonah was on the ship headed for the town of Tarshish? That was the exact opposite direction from Nineveh, where God told Jonah to go. It was while he was on that ship that a great storm arose and all of the men on board yelled out in terror to Jonah while he was sleeping, “Get up and call on your Lord!” Jonah could have prayed to God right then and there and I believe the results would have been great. But he did not pray and the storm got worse and Jonah told the men it was his fault and they should throw him overboard. Once they did so the storm immediately calmed. Even after this happened there was still no prayer lifted up to God by Jonah. Was Jonah afraid of the answer he might receive? Was Jonah concerned with the possible result of his prayer?

At this point of the story all we know is that God told Jonah to do something and without saying a word to God Jonah ran the other way. He did not pray to God at all! He could have prayed and told God he did not want to do this. He could have prayed to God and gave several good excuses why he did not, could not go to Nineveh. He could have prayed to God asking the Lord, “Why me?” But no prayer was lifted up. Jonah, although he proclaimed to the men on the ship that he worshiped the Lord, the God of the heaven, has yet to pray to the Lord. I think he was afraid of the result of his prayer. I think Jonah knew what the answer was going to be so he thought he would just avoid it, or run from it, in hopes that the whole situation would just go away. Sound familiar? Have you ever done that before? “Maybe if I don’t pray about it I won’t have to worry about it!”

A minister asked a little boy whether he prayed every day. "No, not every day," said the boy, "there are some days I don't WANT anything!" A little boy was overheard praying: "Lord, if you can't make me a better boy, don't worry about it.

I'm having a real good time like I am." Listen to these other prayers by children:

1. Dear God, please put another holiday between Christmas and Easter. There is nothing good in there now.
2. Dear God, Thank you for the baby brother but what I asked for was a puppy. I never asked for anything before. You can look it up.
3. Dear Mr. God, I wish you would not make it so easy for people to come apart I had to have 3 stitches and a shot.
4. God, I read the bible. What does beget mean? Nobody will tell me.
5. Dear God, how did you know you were God? Who told you?
6. Dear God, is it true my father won't get in Heaven if he uses his golf words in the house?
7. Dear God, I bet it's very hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it.
8. Dear God, I like the story about Noah the best of all of them. You really made up some good ones. I like walking on water, too.
9. Dear God, my Grandpa says you were around when he was a little boy. How far back do you go?
10. Dear God, do you draw the lines around the countries? If you don't, who does?
11. Dear God, did you mean for giraffes to look like that or was it an accident? 12. Dear God, in bible times, did they really talk that fancy?
12. Dear God, why did you do all those miracles in the old days and none now?
13. Dear God, please send Dennis Clark to a different summer camp this year.
14. Dear God, maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they each had their own rooms. It works out OK with me and my brother.
15. Dear God, I keep waiting for spring, but it never did come yet. Don't forget.
16. Dear God, my brother told me about how you are born but it just doesn't sound right. What do you say?
17. Dear God, if you watch in Church on Sunday I will show you my new shoes.
18. Dear God, is Reverend Coe a friend of yours, or do you just know him through the business?
19. Dear God, I do not think anybody could be a better God than you. Well, I just want you to know that. I am not just saying that because you are already God. 21.Dear God, it is great the way you always get the stars in the right place. Why can't you do that with the moon?
20. Dear God, I am doing the best I can. Really !!!!
21. Dear God, I didn't think orange went with purple until I saw the sunset you made on Tuesday night. That was really cool.”

These are several prayers lifted up to God by young children. What sincerity they have! What honesty their prayers hold! Some of these prayers were lifted up in hopes of an answer from God. Is that how we pray? Do we pray expecting results? Or do we pray just so we can say that we prayed? Do we look for God’s response to our prayers? There is always a result to prayer!

Now let’s look at Jonah’s prayer for a few minutes this morning. Look back with me at Jonah 2. Jonah finally prayed and I think he did so with a sense of urgent expectation. He needed results fast. In chapter 1:17 you can read how Jonah was in the belly of that fish for 3 days and nights so we are not sure when his prayer was lifted up, but we can somewhat safely guess it was near the end of those 3 days because at the end of his prayer it says that’s when God had the fish spit Jonah onto dry land. What a scene THAT must have been! Can you imagine?

Anyway, Jonah was at his lowest possible state and he prayed to God in his distress. Verse 2 Jonah prayed, “In my distress I called to the Lord and He answered me.” This is not only for this situation, but he is also recalling a past time in his life when he needed the Lord. Many Biblical scholars believe this is why he ended his prayer the way he did. Look at verse 9, “But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord.” Jonah prays to God and says he will make good the promise he made to the Lord at some previous point in his life. It is with expectation that Jonah lifts his prayer and he seems to come to a place in this prayer where he realizes his part!

What is our part in prayer? I think it is that we pray expecting results from God that He will answer our prayers. It may not be the answer we want or in the time frame that we think we need, but God will answer!

The result of prayer is that it brings us into a closer and deeper relationship with God. It’s just like the more time you spend with someone the closer you will become as friends. God desires for us to be in communication with Him so we can be closer to Him. Remember the R as you pray and take notice how God provides the results to every prayer you lift up to Him and be sure to praise Him for the results! Don’t wait until you have reached your lowest point either, but pray with great expectation that God is waiting to hear from you today, this morning, right now.